who get lost between sighs and restless nights.

A Touch Of Feather

“Inhale, exhale.” She chants in her mind repeatedly.
“It is not the first time; and it will not be the last.”, she tries to calm herself down.

Another cluster of cloud forms above her head, and all she can think of is how it is just a touch away; a touch away from her reach.
She loved how the air smelled, how melancholy the sky looked, how sensitive the clouds were, how little tiny drops of water heightened every inch of her surroundings.
But what she held a really small grudge against was the splashing about and falling of raindrops; she just felt antipathy towards it for no apparent reason.

In front of her, lay the most revering view; that from a mountain top.
There was a steep mountain filled with greens of all kind, filled with the mesmerising fragrance of tree barks, the wondrous fragrance of all kinds of forest flowers, filled with such an elated warmth that she felt like she belonged there.
From the top of the mountain, one could see the river flowing away from the city and its nuisance; one could feel the river rushing away, intimidating one to to come along, to join its freshness.
She could see all of the city below her, the ever so lively stream flowing beneath, the soothing rippling sound of water splashing against the pebbles.
This was her heaven, the place she would go to if anything at all went wrong.
Her safe place.

She had big, deep, intense, black eyes which fit her frame to precision; her face was round, and smooth; her hair fell on her shoulders like a wave of wind was holding them to such elegance, and carried them to the dimple at the back of her spine.
She was made up of disparate ideas, all in harmony with her salient features which altogether cocooned her into the very apt name of ‘Feather’.
She was dainty, but fierce; elegant, but exquisite as well; beautiful but bold; harmonic but immodest. Her heart knew all of these things, but her mind was made to be suppressed by the otiose notions of the all but futile discriminants of society.
All she could do was sigh at how insignificant everything around her felt.
She nudges her head to get rid of such sinister thoughts.

She helped her mind come back to a warm place as she consumed the view which surrounded her; devoid of any more rain.
It was the best place nature could have had made to exist; where the wind sprawled and made her feel alive, where she could almost just sway away with it.
Almost.

She sighed in content thinking about the way she had ascended.
She had hopped and skipped the earthy path that had been formed because of her frequent visits to the top of the mountain. She was covertly very enthusiastic about things she liked, and she was generally chirpy, but only with her reflection.
She could still feel the warmth of the sun, feel it wither her surroundings of the raindrops. She still felt the cold touch of a single raindrop, which would occasionally fall from the tip of a leaf above, shudder her just a tad bit; almost negligible but even so alive.
She loved the smell of the wet soil which seemed to clean her body of all her thoughts, just keeping behind the delightful warmth and clarity of it.

In all her excitement to go trek to the top of the mountain, she had not notice something not so mundane about her usual trips to the peak; this time there had been a shadow following behind her.
The shadow, a little girl as you could call it, had followed her with such firm and silent steps that even the most observant could not have seen, or rather felt its presence; for it was just a shadow, nothing more, nothing less.

Feather recalled how she had almost given up on climbing to the top, but she knew all of it was worth the view she would get as soon as she reached the top; and with this in mind and the cool breeze, the tender touch of the wind encouraging her to, she had went on a bit more faster. She remembered seeing the Earth ending into the sky, she remembered feeling the height she was at.
“Just a little bit farther,” she had said out loud, when she had neared to the top of the mountain.
The shadow, hearing a sting in the silence, had flustered for a second then, but had recovered as quick and continued to keep a steady pace a few metres behind her.

She felt the wind tickle her body, make her skin feel alive, even now, when she should have become accustomed to it. The way she had hopped about to get to the exact centre of the peak, made her feel giddy about everything around her.
This was perfection, intertwined with divine.
Perhaps, this was the only fantasy she could relive over and over.

With one last sigh of content she lays down and looks above at the lingering white clouds, the yellow, red, purple and orange colours of the sun which is bound to set each day.
She must return home soon, she must follow the lead of dusk, must follow the fluidity of the wind, directing her; she always has, and something tells her she always will.
She stands back up after a few more minutes of admiring the sky, she loves it beyond comparison, she loves the vast sheet of colours with which the sky keeps changing; she loves the boundless, immortal way of which it is made; she finds it eccentric in this world of hues and cries. With the wind dancing within it, the sky is like a paramour to her; a paramour who longs for another look at his lover; who longs for the kisses which flutter on his skin like birds; who waits for the cloud-like beauties to make it appear intriguing; who needs a solemn hope of change to exist for.
She now faces the sun as she walks to the edge of the peak, longing another look at the river which flows below.
As soon as she bends her head to look down upon it, she feels a tug at her shoulder. She disregards it and finds herself measuring the distance between the edge and the river; she had a habit of doing so and her calculation seemed so complete, so elicit that she would perpetually think of it as right.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, she could still feel the tug at her shoulder, calling out to her, needing her to turn and take a look.

She just couldn’t take her mind off of it, and so she turned.
As soon as she pivoted around someone pushed her, or rather something pushed her.
She was falling down now, down to unknown depths, down to the river, down to complete wilderness.
But quaintly enough she wasn’t afraid, not anymore as she looked at the shadow; which almost seemed to reassure her.

She felt a burning sensation at her hands and her feet, and when she parted her gaze from the shadow to her hands, she saw that they were veritably burning and so were her feet.
She closed her eyes tightly to obscure the flames, which were now travelling down her arms and legs, as if closing them would stop her from burning.

After another few milliseconds she couldn’t feel the burning sensation anymore, which she thought would be because of speed she was falling down with.
Something told her to open her eyes, and when she did, there it was, the shadow again urging her to open her eyes even wider.
And as she did so, she upturned and could now see the river closing in below her. What was queer was that the shadow was falling with her; not falling, almost flying; flying like it was the most natural thing to do. On a certain instinct she turns to look at her hands, but they aren’t there anymore; she turns her head ever so slightly to look at her feet, but all she sees is the river that awaits her below.

Her hands are no longer that, but are feathery wings which were ensconced into her flossy torso, moving with utter finesse. She is covered in feathers of all shades of brown and red.

She ganders her eyes to look at the shadow, but it isn’t there anymore; and she knows why.

She holds her head up in utter pride, and her wings instinctively follow up, just as her feet touch the water and make a solacing gush of ripples because of the speed. She moves her wings up and down and flies towards the setting sun with a smile on her face.

She is what she was meant to be, who she undeniably was, born with a touch of feather; she was a bird; a beautiful sparrow to revere the world.

About:

I'm a 19-year-old budding poet from the hills of North India who absolutely loves people and their personalities (feel more than welcome to check out the "About" page of my blog).
My name, Kavya, literally translates into "a collection of poems," and I think the fistful of poetry I indulge in, I try to make of myself, helps me live upto my name.
I tend to write about the different people I have discovered inside of myself and others, concocting them into a definition, an image, a reality, a poem.